


Close Enough

by kangeiko



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-26
Updated: 2005-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:26:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unexpected cuppa materialises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close Enough

Wesley has made him a cuppa. A cup of blood, but a cuppa nonetheless. Spike wonders if he's gone right off the deep end, neurosis and all. What sort of idiot finishes off an awful bloody week by turning into a tea-boy?

Because, see, he'd have expected it of Fred, or maybe even of his sodding-wanking-fucking-die-already-grandsire. Not of Wesley, who only looked at him to glare. Truth to tell, it was the sort of thing that Andrew had used to do, the sort of thing he had started to take for granted and not realised he'd missed until it was months gone and burned to ash. He tries to square Andrew's happy, oblivious face with the taut skin and five o'clock shadow that seemed to have taken over Wesley's façade. He tries to think who could have made up the warm mug instead. Tries to imagine Wesley explaining to someone what to do, at what temperature, how much whiskey to how much blood, how to keep it all from congealing, and tries to imagine Wesley waiting patiently for it to be done to walk the mug across the Wolfram &amp; Hart complex.

Yeah. That'd happen.

Harmony might've thought of it, Spike thinks. Harmony, who tried desperately to be relevant to him, to Angel, to anyone who might remember her from her old life or care for her in her new one. Yes, Harmony tried, but sometimes Spike would forget that she was even in the same room as him. He was certain the others did the same; that if Wesley had asked her to do something he would have tuned out her ceaseless prattle and forgotten to bring the mug to Spike before the blood got cold.

And wasn't the whole idea ridiculous anyway? A grand scheme engineered by who-knew-what to result in Wesley Wyndham-Price bringing a warm mug to Spike, who watched him as if he might have it thrown in his face. And, instead -

No, it's no use. There's really no getting around it, Spike thinks. He sips the heady mix of blood and whiskey and the thick, cloying sweetness of a peace offering, and wonders if kindness is catching. Because he'd been the one to stop Wesley as he walked by the night before, back ramrod-straight, and touch his arm. He'd been the one to confess to murdering a parent and – _in cold-blood, he'd thought, yes, that was something to mention, explain how things change after you've made the decision but it has to be made, d'you see? You're not to think any less of yourself afterwards_ \- yes, it was entirely his fault. And fellow-feeling, evidently as deadly as malaria and as prolific as syphilis, had jumped across bodies, finding fellow cold-blooded guilt to nest in.

He takes another sip, closing his eyes to pretend salvation. It's not enough, but it'll have to do.

*

fin


End file.
